Wednesday, August 31, 2011

North Carolina and West Virginia Question Suggestions

West Virginia won our vote on where to poll this week, to go along with our regularly scheduled North Carolina poll. Obviously we'll look at both states' Presidential and Gubernatorial contests, as well as the Senate race in West Virginia. Anything else we should ask about in those states?

20 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Just an aside, the new site is looking pretty good. As for the questions, please ask the question regarding same-sex marriage in both states. We have very little data on the southern states like we do for the other regions of the country. I was once told that West Virginia was pretty well the most conservative state in the union on same-sex marriage and I'd like to see if that's true. And it's very topical in North Carolina, considering it's coming up for a vote in the state legislature in a couple of weeks.Additionally, the usual horse race numbers and how Perry is doing would also be interesting. Thanks for the chance to give input!!

West Virginians are typically an old fashioned people. They believe in marriage between a man and a woman, but, do not really care about gay people or what the do in their own lives. We were once a stronghold for democrats for 100 years, then the GOP invented lies about taking away our guns and it all changed. Our industry is heavily laden with unions and has been slashed by high unemployment going overseas.

For West Virginia ask a question about supporting or opposing mountain top removal. In North Carolina ask if they have lived in the state a long time or have recently moved. Usually those people who have moved to NC in the last decade lean towards Obama/Democrats. Just wanna see if this is still the case

On the same-sex marriage front, I'd like to ask a question I would have liked to see answered in several other states; how important is a candidate's view on same-sex marriage in deciding how you vote on them? Would be interesting in saying if it's more of a deal-maker for those on the left of the issue or those on the right.

Would love to see Senator/Governor approval numbers for both states (obviously). I'd also love to see the same-sex marriage questions (legal/illegal and marriage/civil union/neither) that you have been asking lately in other states.

North Carolina will be debating an amendment to the constitution to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions on Sept. 12, so I think it could be very interesting to ask the two same-sex marriage questions and a question about the amendment itself to see the disparities between approval/disapproval and the numbers for the actual vote for or against the amendment.

As for West Virginia, it epitomizes Appalachian culture more than any other state, and it would be very interesting to see same-sex marriage numbers there, which I don't think I've ever seen before.

Thanks for asking the same-sex marriage question in multiple states recently, it continues to be fascinating to see how different states compare to each other on the issue. And thanks for taking suggestions as always!

NC- Do you approve of the way Beverly Perdue handled Hurricane Irene? Do you think that FEMA aid must be offset with equal cuts from the federal government?WV- In a primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who would you support? If there is any state where Obama would be down to a potential primary challenger, this is it.Poll Betty Ireland vs. Tomblin to see where she would be in this race.

In WV, approval ratings of Don Blankenship (former CEO of Massey Energy, participated in a number of sleazy political moves like buying a state supreme court seat, and wrote the infamous 'run coal' email telling miners to ignore orders to spend time on safety precautions). Not a hugely well-known name outside the state, but a big deal in WV.

In both, a health care question. "Do you have regular access to nearby quality health care? Yes, not regularly, not nearby, not quality, not at all." Multiple-selection answers, if that's possible with automated polling - press 2, then 3, then # when finished answering, something like that. Otherwise, just "Yes, only to an ER, only with a long drive, no."